Summer Remains Salient in Early September

    

Flying insects frolic toward the Centre for Spiritual Renewal's foliage

Akokoamong kids. Some students; all amiable neighbors. 

Hannah, Margaret Marry (Maggie), Godfred, Francis, and Princilla among others.

"Garden eggs", which I formerly mistook as "golden eggs" with salted tilapia and other smoked/preserved fish.

My new best friends. Convent novices Sr. Patricia (left) and Sr. Georgina. Laughter comes easily in their presence.

Priests in perfect repose, speculating while the alms extravaganza takes place at Sunday mass. I forget the location; about an hour from Kumasi.

Sr. Marian (FST), Sr. Vida (FST), Sr. Mary (FST-a convent mate, far right), among others after mass. 

A Kum tree in Adum. The tree from which Kumasi gets its name. 

Celebrations of birthdays at the FST motherhouse in Dakodwum. 

Oh yes nuns can dance..and they do. 

With Archbishop Anokye and FST Superior General Sr. Alice Matilda.

The Eucharist doesn't fall from the sky after all. FST host factory, where workers and sisters produce the host that fills every Catholic church in the diocese.

Paige loves Sammy. 

The BTLA school bus and my blue friend who graces me with her presence every morning.

Donning the BTLA teachers' uniform. Polkadots have the euphemistic name "dove eggs" here. I'm grumbling over how the male faculty members are exempt.

Ms. Regan goes elementary teacher. New posters for the ICT classroom.

 The 2012-2013 BTLA school year commences on Monday. I have been moved from English and ICT teacher to Creative Arts, English and ICT teacher, back to simply being the all-school ICT teacher. I will hopefully have opportunities to tutor students in English outside of school hours, especially the boarders. I miss my loved ones across the Atlantic, but Akokoamong is great company. Although there are many times during the week where it is exceedingly difficult, I am trying to refrain from ethnocentric thinking to the best of my ability. As much as I try to unpack Peggy McIntosh's coined invisible knapsack of white privilege, I find the sack always remains. Nonetheless, the human spirit wears no color, is free from the scars of history and because it remains fervently flowing through all of my encounters, I almost always wake up with a smile in spite of any hurdles in my way; literal or imagined.